Smash your PB: Use your running watch to go faster and longer

Using a GPS running watch, such as the Polar M400, can help you to shave minutes from your times and become a better runner. The problem is that after spending big on the latest wearable tech, few people use their watch to its full potential.

The truth is that a running watch does a whole lot more than tell
you how far and how fast you're running. Use it right and it can be your very
own digital running coach, and a helping hand to reaching your goals.

With that in mind, we've rounded up ten simple ways to unleash the training potential
of that new GPS running watch.

1. Pay Attention to the baseline

Knowing
when to workout and when to rest is an important part of any successful
training plan but judging whether it's your body or your brain that's tired can be tough. This is where your watch's heart rate monitoring feature can help.

Lie down
with your chest strap or your optical heart rate monitor on and stay still for
up to five minutes. Once you're fully relaxed, take a reading of your resting
heart rate and make a note. Repeat this process at the same time each morning
for two weeks. From this you'll be able to get a decent idea of your average
resting heart rate.

On any
given day, if your heart rate comes in 10 beats per minute (BPM) higher than
your average, it's a good indication that you're overtraining – and that should be your sign to take a rest.

Wareable Upgrade: The Polar V800 has its own
orthostatic test feature, that shows how your heart rate responds to training,
stress and illness. By repeating the test regularly, you can learn what to
expect from your heart rate and what can affect it. You can then adjust your
training to allow your body to recover when it needs it.

2. Find your maximum heart rate

Before you can get stuck into heart rate zone training you need to know your limits and that means finding out your maximum heart rate. Once you've clocked your maximum heart rate (MHR), your running watch will then set your five heart rate segments that relate to the type of workout results you'll get.

To find your max heart rate, make sure you warm up for a good 15 minutes with a combination of slow jogging and dynamic stretches. Once you're nice and loose, find a hill that will take at least two minutes to run. Run the hill building to a hard pace but one you can maintain. Once you reach the top, turn and run back down at an easy pace and then repeat the climb. This will give you watch the info it needs to set your zones. The more advanced watches will then automatically adjust your zones with each run.

3. Zone out

Most high
end running watches now feature a heart-rate zone training feature that helps
you work out more efficiently. Whether you want to burn
fat, build a better aerobic base or work on your anaerobic threshold, sticking
religiously to your heart rate zones will help you fine tune your training like you're
a pro.

Check out this breakdown of the types of training, and the heart rate zones for more detailed information, and then use your watch to make sure your training sessions match up.

Glancing at your wrist to check your BPM every five seconds can be a pain, but you can make life easier by setting heart rate alerts to vibrate when you're working
your heart too hard, or running below the required BPM.

4. Create a training diary

Although
most running watches come with their own apps and web analysis tools for
keeping tabs on your performance over time, it's important to put your stats
into context.

Use a Google
Calendar to create a simple training calendar and note down the following
simple bits of important information: resting heart rate, today's planned
workout, what you actually did and how you felt.

Over time
you'll have a brilliant overview of what training works best for you and the
brilliant thing about Google Calendars is that these can be easily shared with
a personal trainer, coach or running partner.

5. Go for the slow burn

The importance of monitoring your heart rate for base level endurance training (the training that helps you go for longer) is huge. Rather than running flat out on every run, make sure you do at least one of your longer weekly runs while sticking to a low heart rate.

Watches like the Adidas MiCoach make this easier, displaying your heart rate zones with easy-to-follow colour coding. Most devices will show the endurance base building zone as green. Stick to this zone no matter how slow the pace.

This type of training session encourages the body to burn fat as a main source of fuel, an essential tool for any long distance runner, plus it'll help you get lean too and being leaner means going faster.

6. Find your form

“Form
first, then faster" is a great mantra for beginner runners looking to improve
pace and endurance. The good news is there are now running watches that
feedback on how you're running in real time.

The Garmin
Forerunner 620 uses accelerometer sensors in the HRM-Run chest strap to track
scary sounding stats like your 'vertical oscillation'. Translation: it'll tell
you how much 'bounce' there is in your running motion. Typical oscillation is
between 6-13 cm while elite athletes have less bounce.

What's in
it for you? Less bounce equals increased running efficiency, which means you
can go further, and faster while burning less energy.

7. Fake a fartlek

Fartlek, or
“speed play", to translate the word from its original Swedish, is a great way
to build pace and endurance. Essentially interval training, it's usually done
in a group and runners take turns to set the pace at the front, choosing
whatever intensity they feel comfortable at for whatever distance they choose.

You can now
recreate a fartlek-style session using your watch's interval training feature.
Create a plan that combines periods of high pace or high heart rate running
with slower ones but make the intervals random. Mix up different durations of
high intensity with varying recovery times and then hit the streets and have
some fun*.

The best watch for this is the Polar V800 that lets you create your own bespoke interval session in seconds using the Polar Flow website.

* Fun not
guaranteed

8. Track sessions without the track

Hitting the
track for structured interval speed sessions is a fantastic way for runners
looking to improve pace and hit new personal bests for a 5k, 10km, half or full
marathon.

If you're
not lucky enough to live near a track you can use the GPS tracker strapped to
your wrist to recreate a 200m or 400m interval session. Either fire up the
watch's GPS to measure out 400m and then switch to the stopwatch to clock your
split times for each effort or alternatively, create an interval run that puts
together 400m sprints with 400m jog recovery and run your usual route.

9. Take it to the VO2 Max

VO2 Max is
another one of those scary sports science terms but simply put it is 'the maximum or optimum rate at which the
heart, lungs, and muscles can effectively use oxygen during exercise.' It's used
as a way of measuring your individual aerobic capacity.

Getting an
accurate VO2 max reading involves being strapped up to an gas exchange mask as
part of a usually quite expensive lab test. Using clever algorithms both Polar
and Garmin have devised a way of estimating your VO2 Max without the need for
costly test.

Polar's
Fitness Test function lets you do a set workout before revealing your VO2 Max
while the Garmin Forerunner 620 will give you your stats after each run and
even use that info to predict race times.

10. Step it up

The frequency of your feet striking the ground, or cadence, is a dead giveaway for how efficiently you're running. Runners tend to clock a strike per minute (SPM) rate of somewhere between 150 - 200. Most of us mortals come in well below 180SPM with elite level athletes like Mo Farrah hitting the 180 SPM sweet spot, the rate the experts claim gives perfect running efficiency.

One way of
calculating your current cadence is to count the number of times your right
foot strikes the floor over 60 seconds and then double the number. A better way
is to let your running watch do the work. The Suunto Ambit 2 and Garmin
Forerunner 620, Polar RC3 GPX and the TomTom Cardio Runner all give cadence
stats, albeit some require a shoe pod.

Use one or
two of your longer training runs to focus entirely on your cadence, making sure
that's the stat showing on your wrist.

11. Race yourself

Benchmarking
is brilliant to see how far you come and build confidence. Find a familiar
course, preferably somewhere where the conditions will be consistent each time
you run. (Avoid runs where there might be traffic lights to wait at or people
in the way).

Run the
route, log the time and then come back to it on a monthly basis to see how
you've improved. The web tools from Garmin, Polar and Adidas' MiCoach you can
overlay your stats for easy comparison. Things to look out for include your
heart rate versus pace, cadence and consistency of laps. Over a period of time
you should start to see your pace rise but not your BPM and be able to stick at
a steady pace from start to finish.